When we talk about multichannel, we describe how a business or brand interacts with customers across numerous channels. In this day and age where there are so many to choose from, deciding which, if not all, to implement into your communications strategy may feel a bit overwhelming.
To help you out, this article will focus on two very different yet very popular communication channels. Live chat vs Email. After reading carefully, you can decide which works best for your business!
Advantages of Email
The email has been around for years and is a very trusted form of communication. From work-life to interacting with a business, people use this messaging platform every day. However, although considered “traditional” and yet perhaps outdated, this channel is still effective for many reasons from a business perspective. Here is a few of them:
Cost-effective: Opting to use email to contact your customer can actually be very beneficial from a cost perspective. To write and send an email costs you little to none. Additionally, with the introduction of automation, this process became even more cost-effective.
Brand awareness and flexibility: An email can be considered a blank canvas to showcase your brand. Anywhere from promotional images to video links to, of course, text, it is a great and flexible platform to inject your brand’s identity into a single page.
Scalable: Email communication can be used to target a small market group or a huge one! This makes it the perfect channel to use for promoting new products and sending updates to your customer base.
Trusted: As mentioned above, email has been around for years. This means that it had the opportunity to build a reputation. Gaining the trust of customers as a reliable means of getting in contact with a business.
Advantages of Live Chat
With the introduction of live chat, businesses can now keep up with the rapidly changing needs of customers. Additionally, today more businesses are prioritizing customer experience as a driving force behind profitability and growth. Live chat ticked all customer experience boxes with its efficiency and personal approach. With that being said, you can imagine the benefits that come with using this messaging platform are plentiful. We listed just a small handful of them below:
Real-time conversations: Today, customers have come to expect quick replies when interacting with a business. Live chat allows for real-time conversations to take place with responses in a matter of seconds. Therefore, it results in a speedy resolution to customer complaints and queries. Hence it improves the overall customer experience.
Efficiency: A great benefit of live chat is the ability for agents to handle more than one conversation at a time. This means that customers no longer have to wait in long queues to speak to customer support. Furthermore, it is cost-effective for the business.
Building relationships: Customer loyalty and relationship building became top priorities for any business today. Keeping your customers coming back will help your business grow and keep the profits high.
Convert leads into sales: Live chat is a great way to drive your customers down the sales funnel. Through a more personalized approach and with real-time conversations, your customers feel more confident in completing their journey with your business or brand. Additionally, the great thing about chat is that it can have a proactive approach. You can reach out to your customers asking if they need help before they even seek contact with you!
Live Chat vs Email
The matter of fact is that both messaging platforms come with their own set of impressive benefits. And each can be tailored to accommodate your specific target market.
However, this being said. The email has a few issues that may give live chat that edge in the communication game. Long queues and lack of personalization through email is a problem that some customers simply can’t overlook. Whereas live chat provides a reply in seconds, you never really know when that reply will slide into your inbox with email.
Additionally, blasted spam is an all too common occurrence for a brand’s email marketing strategy. Which frankly, customers just don’t open. Conversational marketing is the new trend businesses are adopting as it deals with real conversations and a more personalized approach. This really is where live chat flourishes.
The bottom line is that these days the customer drives every effort of a business. This means that strategies need to be customer-centric. Dealing in experiences and forming relationships. That is why live chat is the leading digital contact method. However, this being said, the email will undoubtedly be the choice for marketing and communication purposes for years to come and maintain its title as the old, trusty traditional communication channel.
Find out which is best for you today with the help of Conversation24!
